


Earth to Sky

by Quinntessentially



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Professional Wrestling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Curse Breaking, Curse Marks, First Kiss, Found Family Vibes, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Magical Realism, well. emotionally complicated frenemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29494164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinntessentially/pseuds/Quinntessentially
Summary: An (abridged) list of reasons “Hangman” Adam Page needs a drink, despite being currently drunk:1.  the curse mark on the back of Kenny’s neck.2.  speaking of Kenny’s neck, Adam thinks he’d like to trying biting it sometime. Maybe sucking a mark. Seeing what kind of noises Kenny would make.3.  Anyway.4.  Kenny doesn’t know he’s a witch, and neither do the Bucks, and the curse mark on the back of Kenny’s (biteable) neck is going to make that hard to maintain. Which is bad since witchcraft is mostly illegal.
Relationships: Kenny Omega/"Hangman" Adam Page
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Earth to Sky

**Author's Note:**

> this fic mostly exists because of [saturatedsinset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturatedsinset/pseuds/saturatedsinset), although i suspect they don't know it. i apologize for mostly glossing over matt's unrequited crush on kenny. 
> 
> this fic also exists because of [cassiopeia721](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiopeia721), who isn't going to read it. 
> 
> finally, shoutout to everyone whose discord server i've been sprinting on non-stop to finish this. and also to everyone who listened to me complaining about editing it. thanks.
> 
> title from _On Receiving the First News of the War_ by isaac rosenberg. please don't feature this fic on your podcast, or read it if you play one of the characters in it. thanks.

It’s because he’s drunk. Great catch-all excuse. The whole thing starts because Adam is drunk enough to forget that the Bucks still don’t know that his momma taught him a few more things than how to plow a field and ride a horse. Mostly charms, honestly. Adam’s horse shit at divination, and his momma never learned the fancy witch spells well enough to pass them on.

So that’s why Adam shows up to backstage for a tag-team match that’s happening in twenty minutes with true sight that hasn’t worn off from the ritual he was putzing around with twenty minutes ago.

He’s pretty drunk.

“Hey, Hangman,” Matt says. He’s sitting next to Kenny, their knees almost but not quite touching. Kenny’s poking at his phone, expressionless. Nick is somehow dozing on a folding chair.

“Yeah, hey,” Adam says. Slurs. Small-talk. “You, uh, you’ve got a match, right?”

Matt scrunches his face into a frown like he mostly always does when he sees Adam. “Yeah, the two of us.”

Adam nods. His head feels a little too wobbly, sore. And his ears are ringing, which isn’t standard, but shit, maybe the bourbon’s playing a little rough tonight. Matt’s eyes probably aren’t as cold as Adam’s beer goggles are telling him.

Kenny finally shoves his phone in his pocket, unfolds himself off the couch.

And. Shit. That’s gotta be what’s making Adam’s teeth ache.

His first snap instinct is that he needs to look away, now. He doesn’t let himself. Lurking on the back of Kenny’s neck is about the angriest curse mark he’s ever seen. 

It’s fist-sized, pulsing in some inscrutable rhythm, mottled yellowish-green and red. Kenny’s gotta be feeling it. He’s probably seeing someone about it already, on the down low. All Elite may be more liberal about magic than WWE, but there’s a sense of propriety to these things.

Adam opens his mouth to say something, but there’s no way Kenny doesn’t know about it. And the Bucks are good Christian boys, so there’s probably about a snowball’s chance in hell they’d be alright with witchcraft. Probably wouldn’t go to anyone but who knows? And Adam’s not fool enough to think that his ever-more-tenuous place on the Elite is enough to smooth anything over with them. It’s not really any of his business. He tries not to imagine his momma’s disapproving frown.

It’s only when Matt gives him a weird look that Adam realizes his mouth is still open. He shuts it. It’s not like Kenny wants his help. Or needs it. That, at least, is perfectly clear. 

Adam sighs through his nose. He can take the free spot on the couch and drag his eyes away from where Kenny’s digging through his gear bag for wrist gauze. 

The mark is like a siren. An eye-siren. Adam’s looking at Kenny’s neck.

Alcohol’s supposed to lower your inhibitions, right? That’s the only reason Adam’s brain flits to how the skin of Kenny’s neck would feel under his hand. Under his teeth. Under the soothing whorls and sparks of Adam weaving a spell. Kenny doesn’t need him and Adam’s done with wanting to be needed. He shifts his gaze over to the drywall and tries not think about anything except where he’s getting his next drink. 

*

The match is more gut-wrenching then usual. Adam almost forgets to tag himself in because he can’t look away from the mass on Kenny’s neck. At least his true sight starts wearing off halfway through, and by the time Hangman’s making the pin — Kenny running interference by the ropes — he can only really see the mark if he squints.

It’s at the end of the match, though. When they’re heading backstage with their heads held high and Matt clasps a hand on Kenny’s neck during their celebration and Adam gets a perfect view of how Kenny’s face turns into a rictus of pain.

It’s not his business.

But. But it’s Kenny. Who does a solid impression of giving a shit about Adam half the time. He can… check on him. Check over him. Make sure that whoever Kenny’s backstage dealt with to fix the mark won’t screw him over.

Cooling down takes a handful of minutes and finding something to eat takes another ten, but then Adam’s free to corner Kenny, who’s hiding as usual in the loneliest part of the arena he can find. It’s not so hard to find him anymore. He’s had some time to figure out where Kenny likes to lick his wounds.

“Hey,” Adam starts with. Nice and normal way to start a conversation.

Kenny’s mouth has already turned tight at the corners, and come on, Adam hasn’t done anything. “Hangman.”

The fluorescent lights flicker on off-beige walls. Dry air. The folding chairs stacked in the corner loom like cordwood ready to catch alight.

“I wanted to ask you about — you know.” Adam gestures at the back of his neck. “Looked like it was giving you some trouble.”

“I’m handling it,” Kenny shrugs, face loosening a little.

Adam nods, takes a hesitant step backward. He shouldn’t bother Kenny. Shouldn’t bother with Kenny. It’s all fine. He was worrying again for nothing. Maybe he can cram in a shower before he lets himself be dragged out for post-taping drinks with whoever can stand him. A beer right about now sounds great, because looking at Kenny is making his gut hurt in a way that has nothing to do with their match.

Kenny continues, blithe. “Yeah, the physical therapy is a bitch but it’s really — why are you looking at me like that?”

He wasn’t aware he was looking at Kenny like that, but it’s probably because starburst shock just flashed through his skull. No witchcraft on the planet involves — okay, maybe there’s Nepalese magic or something that Adam doesn’t know about — _practically_ no magic on the planet involves physical therapy. Certainly no witch in, uh, middle-of-nowhere-Tennessee.

Which means. “You don’t know about the curse mark?” Adam blurts.

Kenny coughs out a laugh. “Pull the other one.”

“On your neck.” Adam squints. “Big one. Size of my fist.” The drink he had with his post-match meal feels like it’s catching up with him.

“You’re kidding me,” Kenny says with bravado he usually saves for the ring. “What the fuck?”

Some obscure impulse drives Adam to place his hand right on it. It doesn’t feel any different than the rest of Kenny’s skin, but the look on Kenny’s face has snapped from dubious and angry to bright, bright pain. 

“Curse mark.” Adam’s thoughts are inching. “See?”

“Yeah, I fucking feel it,” Kenny says. His hand lands on Adam’s own, clawing it off of his neck.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Adam burbles. “You should… you gotta see someone about it.” 

Kenny laughs, this stupid bitter thing. “We’ve been in four cities in five weeks. You think I can find a witch? I don’t keep a, a list of illegal magicians to contact. Because magic’s illegal.”

“So’s, uh, weed,” Adam blurts, to keep himself from saying something stupid like _let me do it. I could do it. Why won’t you…_

The look Kenny gives him is withering. “Thanks,” he says. “I got a new problem and no way to fix it. Why don’t you just go.”

The lights are still flickering and Kenny looks more pissed than he did when Adam came in. He’s fucked it up. All of it. Again. His throat is swelling with repressed nothing at all.

“Yeah, okay,” Adam gets out. Hating himself just a little more with every step, he stumbles for the door. Behind him, Kenny exhales in pain. He doesn’t turn around until the door inches shut behind him and he can think about how maybe ignorance was bliss for both of them.

*

For the next two days, Adam thinks nothing’s changed. Then they end up booked into two different locker rooms — him and Kenny in one, Matt and Nick in the other. 

“Let me ask you something, Hangman,” Kenny says the first second they’re alone. “How’d you know I have a curse mark, huh?”

Adam carefully doesn’t spray his sip of beer on Kenny. “Uh,” he says intelligently. “Instinct?”

Kenny’s standing now, and he’s not taller than Adam but he does have the combative menace he honed during years of leading a heel faction. Adam swallows as Kenny walks closer to him, then close enough to see the sweat on the bridge of his nose.

“Hey, Kenny,” Adam says, trying to figure out what Nick and Matt do that makes Kenny not want to fight them all the time. 

“Because the way I figure it, the only way you could have known I have a curse mark is if you —“ he’s backing Adam up to the door now, one accusing finger at Adam’s chest “— if you were a witch.”

“Haha,” Adam says. Kenny’s eyes are driving deep into — well, if you ask the shitty philosophers, witches don’t have souls for Kenny’s eyes to pierce. Most people don’t think like that nowadays, but wrestling’s a little behind the times. 

“So,” Kenny continues. “You’re going to help me get rid of this… problem.”

“I — what? We’re friends, man,” Adam says with confidence melting like sugar. He’s itching for a drink. He fervently isn’t itching for Kenny to maybe press a little closer.

“I don’t know,” Kenny says. “Are we? I feel like maybe if we were friends you would have offered to help me get this mark off my neck.”

“I thought you had it under control!” Adam can smell the coffee on Kenny’s breath, doesn’t know when he found the time to drink it. “I only found out about it two days ago.”

“Oh yeah? How’d you find out about it?”

Adam presses himself flatter against the door. He can’t hear anyone outside, but that doesn’t mean no one is there. “Fine. I’ll help you with the damn mark best I know how, but you’ll have to quit threatening me.” He pauses, takes a breath.

“Then get going,” Kenny says.

“It’ll hurt. It’s gotta, for it to work.”

“You think I care? Who knows what this — this piece of crap has been doing to me? I need to be at the top of my game.” Kenny’s eyes are a little too wide, a hint of vein pulsing in his neck.

Adam doesn’t bother saying anything else. Doesn’t bother asking why Kenny’s so worried about something he’s probably been carting around for months at this point. He just reaches out, marshals however much brainpower he can, and presses down on where he knows the curse mark to be.

Kenny _howls_.

Adam wishes magic made sense, wishes the mark could be described in sensible terms. It’s purple-green-flashbang with sparks like arc welding. There’s malice infused in it, bad luck and slow healing and breathlessness. He presses down a little harder, feels the skin indent under his hand. It’s like tearing chunks out of a birthday cake, like scraping leaves off a windshield.

Down, down, the colors getting darker and _finally_ Adam finds the root of the curse. It’s tangled, hard to make out, with a texture like flax and splinters, but Adam knows — well. He doesn’t actually know how to solve it, but he probably knows someone who can tell him how.

Underneath his hand, Kenny’s stopped screaming. His head is hanging limply against Adam’s shoulder, his breath coming in hoarse pants. Every so often his hip twitches. 

He glances further down, then snaps his eyes back up from where, yeah, Kenny’s definitely rocking a semi.

“…shit,” Adam says. He takes his hand off Kenny’s neck. Leaving it on feels dangerous. “Someone probably heard that.”

Kenny’s face is pressed against Hangman’s vest, which is good, because Adam’s terrified of what he’d see in his eyes. Is maybe a little terrified of what he’s hoping they’ll show. “Probably.”

Their bodies are so close and Kenny’s so warm, still limp against Adam’s chest and making no move to back away. Adam folds one tentative arm around Kenny’s shoulders, leaves it there when Kenny sighs a little. He really needs to wash his hair. Something which he’ll do alone, without Hangman, whom he hates. Well. Maybe if Adam actually liked him, he’d have offered to help with the mark without being coerced.

Kenny’s showing signs of life now, straightening up. “Can you… y’know, fix it?”

“Yeah,” Adam says, letting his arm fall. “Ask me in a couple weeks, though. I gotta do some research.”

There’s more than a few inches between them, then more than a few feet. “Good.”

“God, I need a drink,” Adam says, half for the excuse to wrench open the door and leave and half because his hands are itching hard and beer usually solves that. The hallway outside is mocking him. Kenny back inside is probably mocking him too. Whoever heard Kenny is probably running to do — whatever.

There’s gotta be a bar around here somewhere.

*

The research sucks more than usual. Last time he had to figure out anything of this magnitude and weirdness, he was living in a town of twenty-three hundred and he knew everyone and what they’d know that he didn’t. Most of those people won’t get home addresses, much less answer an unknown phone number.

With every day or two that creeps by, Adam finds himself missing the stupid shit more. Like decent barbecue. Or when Kenny would actually smile at him. 

He told Kenny he’d have answers in two weeks a week ago. So he’s poking around his contact book, squinting in the South Carolina sun, trying to figure out who might know someone who knows someone who knows how to get to his aunt Connie when Nick slides up. He doesn’t sit down at the picnic table, but he casts a shadow over the page Adam was trying to decipher.

Adam doesn’t ask where Matt is, first because he’s not drunk enough to be stupid and second because he’s probably off cornering Kenny.

“What’s up?” Adam says, perplexed. Nick doesn’t look angry — well, he looks a little angry, but that’s just how his face looks when Adam sees him these days. It’s weird seeing him in civilian clothes when Adam’s only seen him ready to go onstage for a couple weeks.

Nick seems to think over what he’s going to say for another few seconds. “Matt said we should ask you and Kenny why you’ve been hanging around each other so much. Seems like something’s up.”

He should have realized the Bucks would have questions. “A guy can’t hang out with one of his pals?”

Nick squints. “You two don’t even like each other much. Well, other than when you’re tagging.”

“We’re mending fences.” Adam turns back to his contact book. Why the hell did he file Cousin Jean under her maiden name when she’s been married for thirty years?

“What are you even doing?” Nick says. “Like, right now. The two of you.”

Adam shrugs. He knows how to keep a secret, and he’s been keeping anything and everything witch-related from the Jacksons for a while now. Hell, for all Adam knows, witching is still felonious in this state. 

Frustrated sigh from behind him, but Adam’s not going to look up. “Fine,” Nick says eventually. “Maybe Matt got something out of Kenny. See you.”

“Bye,” Adam says, and pulls out his phone to dial Uncle Charles.

*

Chasing leads on magic is worse than chasing wild geese, Adam has determined. But those geese are well and truly cooked so — this metaphor got away from him. He takes another sip of, uh, liquor probably, and tries not to think about it.

His match is over and done with well before the main event, but Kenny’s wrestling in a couple hours and he’s going to want Adam to deal with his curse mark after, if only because there’s not time to meet up beforehand. At least Adam’s got a solid sixty percent of an idea how to root it out, which isn’t bad for two weeks on the road. Magic’s always pretty touch and go for him.

Adam’s not quite sure where in the venue he is, but he’s just staring at the off-white wall so it’s not like it matters. The Bucks won’t have anything mid-show they want him to do.

There’s nothing to stop him from getting lost in his head as the crowd screams outside and the moonlight fails to penetrate the mortar bowels of the building.

He just keeps coming back to the sense-memory of Kenny’s neck under his hand, the way he tensed and then went so limp. Soft enough to convince Hangman that Kenny trusted him. Breath fanning against his collarbone. Some tendril in the back of his mind says to tear himself away from the thought. Not to imagine what Kenny might look like pliable on his back on hotel sheets, eyes half-shut or blown wide with pleasure-pain. Not to think about what it might be like to scratch his hands down Kenny’s arms, his chest, to feel Kenny breathing into the touch.

“Fuck,” Adam says out loud. He can’t — He’s gotta clear his head. Maybe Kenny has a couple hours before the show to get a start on the mark. Because spending time with Kenny will solve this. 

Adam stands abruptly. His head spins. Impossible to tell if his vision is blurry when all the walls are the same grim shade.

Hanging with Kenny is a good plan, actually. It’d be good to reset Adam’s head. Remind him that Kenny’s only going to him because there’s nobody else. He downs the rest of his glass. Tastes like rum. He pours himself another for the road, then tops it up a few seconds later.

Finding Kenny isn’t quite second nature. Maybe like third nature. His schedule’s pretty intuitive, is what Adam’s saying, which is good because Adam’s creeping from numb to plastered. 

Of course, he’s hanging around with the Bucks, shooting the shit about lighting logistics. “Hey,” Adam says. “Hey, Kenny.”

Kenny looks at him with more sharpness than is really called for. “Hangman.”

“Uh,” says Adam. “We can talk, right?”

Belatedly, Adam registers that the conversation has fallen silent. When did Matt learn how to glare that hard? Rude.

“Not right now,” Kenny says. He seems… exhausted, flinty. Or maybe full of bravado. Adam’s not really sure.

“Sure.” Adam bobs his head and regrets it immediately. “Later.” 

God, Kenny’s hair is so touchable. And his browbone is so majestic. This isn’t the train of thought he’s supposed to be having. Why is Matt looking at him like that? Whatever. The door’s just behind — just thirty degrees off of behind him. Adam stumbles out.

The tech guys seem perfectly happy to let him hang out with them while he, regrettably, sobers up. Kenny’s match is striking. Adam only accidentally holds his breath a couple times, and one of them is a spot that looks like it genuinely almost went bad. And he’s not thinking about Kenny’s neck at all, except for when he gets suplexed and slams it against the mat. And eats a ‘rana and slams it against the mat. And…

He thinks he probably stops cracking jokes around the third time it happens, and that’s about five minutes in. By the end of the match, their backup sound guy is shaking him by the shoulder asking if he’s sure he’s fine.

“Yeah, no issues here,” Adam says. The muscles in his throat clench around the words. He’ll find Kenny after the show.

As it turns out, he’ll try and fail to find Kenny. It always sucks being reduced to wandering the halls, yelling Kenny’s name like a goatherd who’s missing half a flock. And his throat’s sore.

Maybe he’s a little hopelessly lost. There’s no reason for a venue to be this byzantine, but the architects of the American South never fail to astonish him. Adam slumps against the nearest wall. The crowd’s filtered out.

Just him and his thoughts.

God, he could use a beer. And a ride to the hotel. Christ knows why he even came to the venue if he was going to do close to nothing for hours and then wind up on a linoleum floor.

Time, technically, passes.

Footsteps, less technically, draw near. They sound hesitant. Adam opens his eyes from where they had drooped closed.

It’s not Kenny, like some traitorous chunk of his heart had been hoping. It’s Nick. 

Offering a hand.

Adam’s not a hundred percent sure his legs still work, and years of seeing people take a forearm when they try to handshake are screaming in his brain. Some stupid hindbrain part tells him to take the hand anyway. It’s cool, calloused.

Nick — pulls him up. Which Adam had been counting on. Obviously.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Nick says, cheerful and flat. “Kenny explained everything to Matt.”

“Everything?” Adam feels like maybe he should pour a bucket of water over his head so the outside matches what his insides are doing.

“Yeah.” Nick scoops Adam’s arm under his shoulders, supporting a little more of his weight. “Yeah, I don’t think Matt’s happy that you’re fucking now, but he’ll get over it.”

“Yeah,” Adam says on autopilot, then realizes what he’s just agreed to. Feels like his feet are going numb, now, like sheer panic is obliterating his nervous system. “You know where he’s staying tonight?”

Nick laughs, purposefully raunchy like he’s in on the joke, but when Adam risks a glance over his eyes are far away. “Same hotel as us. Don’t know the room.”

“Hey.” Adam can feel tears welling up in his eyes and maybe he’s just overtired or maybe he’s turning into a weepy drunk. “You’re a good friend. Even though you hate me. Most of the time.”

“Sure, buddy,” Nick says. Sighs. “Let’s just get you to the Uber.”

*

Adam wakes up with a headache, as per usual. His memories get fuzzy well before the hotel, but he’s in his room alone so he maybe-probably didn’t go see Kenny. He should probably do that now.

Morning routine first because his mouth tastes like a dungheap. And then figure which room Kenny’s in.

Adam doesn’t think about it too hard when, mouth freshly minty, he hits Kenny’s contact on speed dial. his leg jitters while the ringtone sounds.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kenny,” Adam says. “We should talk.”

“I don’t see why,” Kenny says, edge of laughter dissolving into static. “Unless you found…?”

“Yeah, we can work on your curse mark now. Hey, but maybe first you can explain why on God’s green earth you told Matt we were having sex.”

Audible spit-take from over the line.

Adam smiles but it’s twisted, unhappy. “Can you just tell me your room number?”

It’s hardly a couple minutes walk to Kenny’s room. When he opens the door, Kenny looks… flustered. His hair’s damp. Not that Adam really notices. Or thinks about how Nick Jackson probably thinks they had sex last night.

“So,” Adam says. “Curse mark.”

Kenny appears to have spaced out, so eventually Adam just edges past him into the room. It’s exactly the same as Adam’s room, but the blinds are open like Kenny’s been up for longer than twenty minutes.

“You know how to fix it?” Kenny says.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Adam says. “Took more people calling up people than you would believe. But yeah, I can fix it. Shouldn’t take but a couple hours.”

“Just so weird that someone would curse me,” Kenny says, like curses don’t just happen sometimes. “Hey, where do you want me?”

Adam wrestles his mind out from the gutter with the exhausted fury of a man who’s tag-team wrestled while half-hard. “Armchair’s fine. Sit in front of it, so I can reach your neck.”

Kenny drags the armchair to the clearest part of the room, then throws a pillow on the floor. His expression is lighter than Hangman usually sees it.

The sun is still streaming in through the window, comically cheerful and doing nothing to make Adam’s shoulders stop tensing. He goes to the ensuite to wash his hands. It’s not strictly necessary — most magic he knows doesn’t require ingredients, just time and talent and trickery — but it makes him feel better. Gives him a chance to clear his head.

When he gets back out, Kenny’s cross-legged. Adam sits behind him, says, “This’ll hurt.”

Kenny coughs, harsh. “Just do it. Don’t — just do it. Please.”

Maybe something in Adam’s brain snaps cleanly at that, cordwood under a wedge. He presses his hand to Kenny’s neck. There’s no sharp sound of pain this time, just the susurrus of a slow exhalation, a reflexive tensing and purposeful relaxation.

Even as he probes deeper into the mark, the same eddies and whorls and muddy leaves as last time, Adam notes dimly that Kenny’s eyes have closed.

Magic is — it’s weird, is the best way Adam knows how to put it. Not bizarre or unearthly, just a stretching, crackling _other_ nested behind his shoulder blades, buried in the tips of his fingers. Straining at the traces. Ready to be called on.

Adam calls.

Behind his eyelids there’s a flash of light but Adam doesn’t register it, can’t, just loses himself in Kenny, in this thing that’s attached to Kenny, plunges deeper into the haystack until it’s all dust and scratching welts on his arms, and when he’s so deep he’s forgotten the sunny day, just there does Adam find the root. 

It’s tidy. Just a tangle of anger wrapped around a tangle of rope wrapped around nothing at all.

With steady, trembling hands, Adam presses his hand out with his great-aunt’s kitchen knife that is not there and he slashes until the rope is shreds and the haystack is shreds and the sun is streaming through the open hotel blinds and Adam opens his eyes.

“Holy shit,” Kenny says. He’s panting.

Surreptitiously, Adam checks that his arms are not actually bleeding.

His back aches. More than usual. He could use a drink. Water first, because his mouth is drier than it was this morning, and then something stronger to take the edge off. The hotel clock is hard to read. It says it’s lunchtime.

Gently, inevitably, Adam’s neck stops holding his head up. Like a door falling off its hinges, his head comes to rest on Kenny’s curls. 

“What the hell was that thing?” Kenny says. “I feel like — I feel a million pounds lighter. Like I could run a marathon. Wrestle Okada another sixty minutes. Shit!”

He definitely says more words after that. Maybe Adam even understands some of them. As he breathes the smell of the hotel shampoo, four hours of sleep and three hours of magic, Adam’s not sure that he gets anything except the vibrations in his skull.

*

He wakes up on Kenny’s bed. He knows it’s Kenny’s bed because Kenny’s dragged the armchair next to the bed and is playing on his 3DS when Adam wakes up. Adam has absolutely no thoughts about Kenny, or Kenny in his bed, or being with Kenny in Kenny’s bed or any activities that could be thereon performed.

He totally would, except for how there’s not room in his brain for anything but groggy. And wrenching muscle pain.

“What time’s it?” Adam mumbles.

Kenny looks over slowly enough that it feels planned. “About two.”

“‘M hungry,” Adam says. The first step to getting food is getting out of Kenny’s bed, but his body doesn’t seem on board. He wrenches an arm out from under the covers, heroically drags himself nearer the end table. Twinges something under his shoulder bone.

“Oh, I can get you something,” Kenny says. That’s definitely him trying to be nonchalant.

“You don’t like me,” Adam feels the need to point out. “You came to me because magic’s illegal. Ish.”

Kenny’s face winces even if the rest of him doesn’t. “Still, you did me a solid, man.”

The same bell that was dinging when Nick gave him a hand is dinging now. Clanging, really. Attempting to alert the village that there’s a fire. “I got it.”

Hangman thinks it’s spite that gets him out of bed. There’s certainly no energy left in his body. He almost makes it to the door without stumbling. With maybe more effort than he’s expended on anything but wrangling a pissed-off bull that one time, Adam wrenches the door open.

The universe has a grudge. Adam’s evidence: the Bucks are outside.

“Damn, we didn’t even have to knock,” Matt says. He’s grinning but he doesn’t seem happy. When they push inside, Nick has the gall and unmitigated poor taste to wink. 

“Hey, guys!” Kenny says. The carpet is rough under Adam’s feet and he’s so, so tired of people looking at him and not liking him and thinking they’re better than him when they don’t even know him.

Matt’s taken a seat on Kenny’s bed. He’s redoing his ponytail, shooting the breeze about some up-and-coming tag team from Japan.

Adam’s teeth hurt and his back aches and there’s no mark on Kenny’s neck. There’s just the Bucks, and Kenny, and him perpetually on the outside.

“We’re not fucking,” Adam blurts.

A silence previously known only to abandoned coal mines descends on the room.

“I mean,” starts Adam. “Uh.”

Years of keeping anything even magic-adjacent from the Bucks. Good Christian boys. Like Adam wasn’t raised to fear God too. 

“What the fuck?” Matt says. Nick says it half a second after, just off beat from in stereo.

Adam doesn’t say anything. His face feels like it does when he gets the hot tag in.

Kenny’s looking at him like this is a betrayal. Big eyes, curls dry from the filtered sun. Adam doesn’t care. There’s an unplumbed vein of anger roiling in his chest. He misses the sun on his neck, the smell of clean dirt, the way he had neighbors who were friends who would ask his momma for a charm for their horses.

The fight rolls out of him for a second.

The exhaustion he’s been battling for eternal minutes takes the opportunity to kneecap him. 

“It’s nothing,” Adam says. On colt’s legs, he makes for the door.

“Hold on one second!” Kenny yells. 

Adam hears it and it passes through him like a breeze. “I’ve done enough for you.”

The door shuts behind him. Adam’s stumbles to his room. Drops his keycard, but when he bends down to get it his legs collapse. Wood bangs against his spine. His stomach aches along with the rest of him.

Dimly, Adam hears footsteps. “Get back there,” says Kenny, “and explain.”

Adam looks up, mournful as he knows how. “Tell ‘em the truth.”

“The truth?” Kenny’s face is a rictus of disbelief, playing to the cheap seats.

“Or tell them to wait until I can explain it,” Adam says. “But I’m sick of hiding.”

He says it, and it’s true. Funny how you never realize things like that ’til the worst possible moment. Sick of hiding.

“Hey,” Adam says to Kenny’s knees. “Get down here.”

It’s not pretty. Adam would have liked for it to be pretty, with birdsong and the smell of grass. It’s mostly two mouths pressed together, a little too much teeth and surprise. 

Adam pulls back, then leans in again. Better the second time. Softer. Warm. Still a lot of surprise, and then Kenny’s mouth moves against his. His arm comes up to hold onto Adam’s tricep, not restraining, just present.

Maybe third time’s the charm. 

“The Bucks are probably real confused,” Adam says against Kenny’s pliant mouth.

“I’ll tell you why I said we were having sex,” Kenny whispers. “It’s because I wanted it to be true.”

His face is so pink. Adam wants to touch it, feel the scrape of stubble with his fingertips too.

His impulse control is shot. Adam reaches out, presses his palm to Kenny’s jaw because he can. Kenny moves with it, tilting his head. Before he really clicks with what he’s doing, Adam’s leaned in to bite Kenny’s ear. It tastes like skin, and a little like shampoo.

“We’re absolutely still in a hotel hallway,” Kenny says. It’s the funniest thing anyone’s ever said. Maybe, Adam ponders as the world gets blurry at the edges and his laughter starts to judder, this is what hysteria is. The opposite of peace.

Kenny’s lifting him. Fireman’s carry, like he’s about to take one of his fancier suplexes. The door opens and Adam’s eyes drift shut. The last think he remembers is the barely-identifiable sensation of someone untying his shoes.

*

Adam wakes up and his brain is working, which means he could probably use a drink. He kissed Kenny Omega last night — shit, he kissed Kenny Omega a few hours ago. And then Kenny untied his shoes. That’s probably a reason to drink. And the Bucks are looking for him. So he could incontrovertibly use a drink. 

But he really, desperately needs some food. He didn’t eat breakfast and the sun’s going down in an hour. 

He wanders outside, flicking the gunk from his eyes. There’s fast food by the hotel. The lights inside make his eyes hurt, but they’re no worse than the sunlight. He even bops his head to the tinny jazz playing hopelessly inside. Kenny doesn’t hate him. Counts for a hell of a lot.

Several hundred calories digested on cheap plastic seats later and Adam runs into Matt on the pavement outside. He’s carrying a coffee that’s gotta be a full pint.

“Hey, Adam!” Matt says.

Adam can feel his smile get tense. “Hey, Matt.”

“You want to, uh, tell us what all that was about last night?”

Now that the adrenalin from last night is gone, Adam doesn’t, no. But there’s not any way out he can see. And it’s not like Matt’s smiled at him really, smiled at him like he smiles at Kenny, in months.

“Yeah, I was, uh,” God, his mouth is so dry. He should have gotten a soda or something. “I was helping Kenny with, uh, a curse mark he picked up.”

Matt looks at him for a full fifteen seconds. Adam keeps his face as blank as he can, like that’ll keep his insides from pooling into terror and shame.

“So… you’re a witch,” Matt laughs joylessly. “I’ve been hanging out with a witch. Calling a witch a member of the Bullet Club and the Elite. A witch.”

“Yes,” says Adam. If he slouches he can pretend that it’s his choice that his spine has turned into tadpoles. 

“Shit,” Matt says. “I think I need a minute.”

“Take all the time you need.” Adam turns his back, because his animal brain can’t physically yell at him any louder. “Maybe tell Nick for me.”

“No, wait, goddammit.” Matt grabs Adam by the shoulder, which is not something he would like to be happening. “I’m not gonna — report you to the police or something. I don’t even live here. I should have figured, I guess.”

Maybe three percent of the knot of worry in Adam’s stomach dissipates.

“And — Nick’ll be fine with it too.”

Not really what Adam was looking for, but he doesn’t know what he was looking for. Matt’s grip on him has loosened. For a brief second, Adam remembers a few hours ago and Kenny grabbing his arm the same way.

He turns. There’s a split second where he sees Matt’s face, confused and open, and then envelops Matt in a hug.

Adam mumbles into Matt’s shoulder, “Even if you don’t like me, we’re us, right? The Elite.” He doesn’t say anything about family, but he thinks Matt might hear it anyway.

“You’re so weepy,” Matt says, but his free arm closes around Adam’s back. Then, quiet, “Yeah.”

Adam could really use a drink, but he’ll put it off another minute if it means he can keep this.

The sun beats down through the clouds and Kenny’s waiting in the hotel, and Adam’s pretty sure he’ll still be there when they get back.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i could talk for a Really Long Time about this fic so please let me know in the comments any things that stuck out or you liked or alternately anything.


End file.
